Sunday, March 15, 2020

The Incubus, Demon Rape

In the interest of gender equality, and since I reviewed Succubus back in 2018, we will take a look at 1981's "The Incubus." Perhaps this one will be difficult for some to watch as many of the rape scenes are quite brutal and gratuitous. However, as far as creepy horror goes, this is a pretty good one, with a neat ending many may never have seen coming. To be fair to this film we should mention that the rape scenes were delivered with a brutality in which the victims suffered greatly. I mention this because in Roger Corman's Galaxy of Terror the MPAA almost gave it an X rating because they claimed actress Taeffe O'Connell appeared to enjoy the experience when she was raped by a giant worm.
In a small Wisconsin town Tim (Duncan McIntosh) has nightmares of a woman being tortured in a dungeon. Whenever he has these dreams, some babe in town is brutally raped, usually killed, by some monster. Mandy (Mitch Martin) is the first, and her beau is killed. A librarian  (Denise Ferguson) will be next. Mandy will survive but has gone mad. Town doctor, Sam (John Cassavetes) and police chief Hank (John Ireland) team up to get to the bottom of this. More rapes of town babes occur and they are all brutally murdered as well. Gratuitous shower scenes are present and monstrous rape scenes are there too.
Sam awkwardly falls in love with town reporterette Laura (Kerrie Keane). The two drink together, kiss, and awkwardly almost have pre-marital sex. Uh oh, Sam's daughter Jenny (Erin Noble) is Tim's girlfriend. As Tim continues to dream, nubile damsels are raped and shredded some more. Now Tim figures out he is the culprit and so does Sam. Now Sam tries to figure out how milquetoast Tim could be doing all these brutal rapes. Uh oh again, the secret is known by Tim's grandmother (Helen Hughes) and concerns some eerie hi-jinx that went on way in the past.
Is the sultry and nubile Laura in more danger from the incubus demon or from the awkward and weird Dr. Sam? Is wimpish Tim's manifestation as a demon monster something that his GF Jenny might find oddly appealing? Is the incubus a metaphor for western society's inbred misogyny through history, or is it just a gratuitous horror film plot device? Brutal, weird, and ominous, "The Incubus" is an interesting horror film that probably should be avoided on date night. Okay...out of an appeal to good taste, I am not gonna say the rapes in this film were a foretelling of Harvey Weinstein's rape of [CENSORED].

2 comments:

  1. These films are made as a warning, life isn't fair, thanks for warning us of the graphic scenes.

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  2. Great review! I follow you on Twitter!! Keep it up!

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